“Our Olympic Committee is for everything good, against everything bad” – Kommersant FM

The Russian Olympic Committee will not be against the participation of domestic athletes in the Games in Paris. This was stated by the head of the ROC after the organization’s executive committee, which took place on Thursday, March 14. It was expected that officials would form a clearer position on this matter. The media parsed Stanislav Pozdnyakov’s statements into quotes, but the situation did not become clearer, and most likely it will not become clearer, Kommersant FM sports commentator Vladimir Osipov is sure.

The topic of Russian athletes traveling to the Olympic Games in Paris comes up constantly. I’m sure this story has already begun to irritate many people. Simply because the world has long understood the position of the International Olympic Committee on this issue, but there has been no Russian position. After the country’s Olympic Committee was given a specific task in February of this year – to formulate proposals for the participation of Russians in the Games, everyone was waiting for the executive committee of the organization, after which Stanislav Pozdnyakov, who is at the head of our Olympic movement, had to say something on this issue.

And this “something” seemed to finally shed light on everything that was happening. The country needs an official position on the issue of athletes traveling to the Games. And then, as in the old Soviet joke, hesitating along with the party line is already somehow strange. But the head of the ROC again managed to say a lot and in a completely uninformative way. His active communication with representatives of the press could not shed light on everything that was happening. Pozdnyakov said that the Olympic Committee will not boycott the Games, that the organization will always support the athletes, but at the same time emphasized that the ROC does not deal with neutral athletes, that is, in fact, it has nothing to do with everything that is happening.

So we again did not hear any proposals, apart from the main message: our Olympic Committee is for everything good, against everything bad. Even Vladimir Putin spoke about a balanced decision that the Ministry of Sports and the Russian Olympic Committee must make, but Stanislav Pozdnyakov confidently says that he will no longer return to this issue.

It is clear that, to put it mildly, not many athletes with Russian passports will make it to the Games in Paris. At the moment there is a list of only eight people. Perhaps there will be more, although if the athletes are asked to sign some documents, the list, on the contrary, will be reduced. Moreover, the media are speculating with all their might what will happen to those who go to Paris, painting unpleasant pictures of biased judging and more.

Some federations, like gymnasts, no longer want to deal with this, others, on the contrary, are ready to go in any situation, like tennis players. In the Internet space, many people, both officials and ordinary fans, express their views on the issue of athletes’ trip to Paris; there are a great many opinions. And how, in this situation, sports officials still manage to move between the streams of pouring rain and remain dry is unclear.

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